The Crystal Goblet by Beatrice Warde

Beatrice Warde mentions in this article, “the first thing he ask asked of this particular object(glass) was not ‘How should it look?’ but’ What must it do?” It’s true that a vessel’s basic function is just to hold things. Of course no matter what is it made of, glass, metal, clay or plastic would do the job. However, why “the man who first chose glass instead of clay or metal to hold his wine was a ‘modernist”? Now we use glass to hold wine, because while drinking wine, people do want to feel the content instead of just swallowing into stomach and digest and… Pouring a wine into a container just for breathing and it’s an important step of wine tasting. So to view the color, to breath the smell, to feel the temperature, we need a vessel that is able to convey the idea of drinking wine. Same as type, ” it must convey specific and coherent thoughts, ideas, and images”, Warde writes. The most important thing about print is to convey ideas or images from one mind to another. Most types(as vessels) are “legible”(“holdable”） because we recognize those alphabet and words（wine). But while people are reading(drinking), they are reading(drinking) the words(wine) and the meaning(taste) of the sentences(wine). Again a type(glass) is to help to convey the content. Although the content is the only valuable point, without type(glass)’s help, the word(wine) may not really mean anything to those who does not into reading or wine.